As I read in Debord’s essay, “Commodity as a Spectacle,” #42 caught my attention. “The spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life” (p 111). What I took from this is that entertainment and reality television has taken a toll on most of our lives where we can’t even sit through commercial breaks. So, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the link between commoditization and convenience. Hulu and the DVR enable me to watch a TV show pretty much whenever I want to. This works well for me when I want to watch reality TV like Jersey Shore and Real Housewives of New Jersey. The added benefit is there are limited commercial breaks and if I get bored I can fast forward to the scenes that interest me and then throw the episode away like a discarded Kleenex. It makes me feel as though I can skip a show without feeling like I missed anything major.
Another example of the effect of commoditization of entertainment can be seen in the spread of Redbox Kiosks and the correlation in the downturn of DVD sales. At over thousands of kiosks in the US, you can rent a movie for as little as a $1. The amount of movies available at the theatre, cable, on demand, via the internet, and on DVD add difficultly to the idea of shelling out $10 to own the DVD or even more to see the movie in the theater.
A lot of people have been poo-pooing the very short seasons and the pre-packaged timeline of Lost (we all know when the series ends). But I’ve found the added anticipation of having to wait for the season to begin combined with the fact the show is ending after this season has made it that much easier to make a weekly event of watching the show with my friends. Going back to the DVRs and Hulu, these companies who make these kinds of products or websites to be able to watch your favorite reality TV show without any commercials are “all sold labor of a society which globally becomes the total commodity for which the cycle must be continued” (p 111).
No comments:
Post a Comment